Digital Cipher No. 14

I. Music & Tech

Facebook Fights for their Rights to Music

Facebook’s continued push for video content resulted in a recent offering in the hundred millions to music labels and music publishers. With acceleration of user generated video content in recent years, Facebook has seen a respective spike in the amount of unlicensed music being used to supplement this visual content. Currently protocol is for the rights holder to request the videos in violation be removed and then Facebook takes the necessary action. The purpose of these recent negotiations would be to give users the right to use music in their uploaded videos. This latest motion toward video comes a little over a week after Facebook bid $600 million for the streaming rights to Indian Premier league cricket. For more on Facebook’s motions toward music rights and video check out this video here.

Google goes Inside Music w/ Song Exploder

Google recently partnered with the Song Exploder podcast to create a very special Web VR Experience known as Inside Music. Song Exploder is a unique podcast platform for music discovery and exploration that gives artists the opportunity to dissect their song and explain how it was created. Now with the collaboration of technology and music users are able to explore each element of the song in an interactive web experience. There is no download necessary. Check out the info and give it try here.

Bandlab Acquires Chew.tv

Bandlab Technologies, the Singapore based music-making social platform recently acquired Chew.tv. A video streaming service for DJs, Chew.tv was “struggling financially” prior to this acquisition. While Chew.tv was an Ignite Accelerator alum, and once boasted a user base of 380k with over 120,000 hours of content, they were breached by a hacker in 2015 that drastically affected their normal operating costs. Still, thanks to a loyal fan base, Chew.tv was able to sustain and rally back. Read more about the details of the turn around here.

Apple Follows Suit with Warner Licensing Deal

Last week Apple negotiated its first deal with a major label since the introduction of their on demand Apple Music service. With names from Ed Sheeran, to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bruno Mars, this is obviously a valuable development for iTunes and Apple Music. Over the past few years, as the structure of music streaming has been evolving to meet the demands of the digital music industry and behaviors of modern listeners, rights holders have been “flexible” with regards to compensation. That is of course as long as listening services continue to grow paying user bases (which they are). Read more about Apple Music’s future plans here.

College Student “Got $5 On It” – Spotify / Hulu Bundle

Last week Spotify and Hulu launched a partnership yielding a $5 bundled service offer for all college students. While Spotify already offered their service for $4.99, the deal got much sweeter with Hulu’s video content. This is a strategically dynamic offer from a number of angles. The most obvious being cost effective access to media for a valuable demographic with very significant influence. Additionally, this gives Spotify the opportunity to diversify itself with video content after it has been struggling to do so independently. Read more about this partnership and what this means to Spotify as they prepare to go public here.

II. Entrepreneurship

Ruff, Rugged, and Raw – Photo Expedition

This past weekend we had the pleasure of attending a photography exhibit featuring the work of some of the most accomplished historians to have toted a lens during the 90s Hip Hop era. Xiouping, Danny Hastings, and B+ all had their work on display and for a New York Hip Hop head, “heavenly” is an understatement. Still, ironically enough the visual hip hop messengers delivered the real money shots during a Q&A session moderated by Tracii McGregor. Of course it was amazing hearing them talk about about their experiences and their iconic subjects, but it wasn’t just what they said, but rather how they said it. Every single one of them managed to communicate the passion they had for the culture, and more importantly that it was still alive and intact. Costa Mesa native Xiouping, at one point went off on a rhyming tangent, referring to herself as, “Crystal with a motherf*cking pistol” to describe how she combatted any misogynistic treatment encountered in the male dominated hip hop game during her come up. The Irish born B+ described hip hop as the, “most important political movement since World War II”, and said it with the utmost respect and conviction to both hip hop and society. Last but not least, Danny Hastings upheld his position as an honest vessel of the culture when asked about his experience with Guru of Gang Starr, when he chose to talk about the disappointing nature of their last interaction. In a room full of fans spawned from the “Golden Era” of hip hop you could feel everyone collectively wrestling with Danny’s honesty about the King of Monotone, while grieving the loss we all still feel. From pictures of Pun, to ODB, to Project P, it goes without saying they wielded their cameras with purpose. Appropriately check out the recap and pictures here.